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Press Play to hear Rafe Martin speaks about Zen and the Art of Spiritual Storytelling on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf.

Rafe Martin speaks…
Many years ago (staring in the early 1970’s and on) I began walking two traditional roads – that of formal Zen practice and that of storytelling. My first public storytelling events actually took place at the Rochester Zen Center in 1973. For many years the two roads went running in happy parallel, sometimes visible to each other from across the ravine, sometimes hidden by bushes, boulders, trees and vines. In the later part of the 80’s the two roads began to join up and intertwine, weaving in and out, braiding and re-forming from story elements old and older, ancient and new. The worlds of oral storytelling and writing books began to interconnect for me, too. I wrote picture books and collections, original and ones inspired by traditional tales and communities. I began speaking every year for about a dozen years at Zuni Pueblo, one of the most traditional Native communities in North America where I saw myth come alive, be ordinary and very real at the same time. What a gift!

I wrote a novel, too, that sprang out of the world of the Brother’s Grimm – tales that my mother had loved and read aloud to me, when I was young. Ordinary, daily, personal life, and the ancient world of story began to support and teach each other. All along I kept up with daily Zen sitting and Zen retreats (called sesshin – meaning “to touch the mind”), as well as with working with excellent teachers in that branch of Buddhist tradition. About a year and a half-ago I received ordination in Zen tradition and the two roads of story – both personal and traditional – and the road of personal evolution/ spiritual work I knew from Zen practice, became one.

So, when Eric asked to do an interview on these related subjects right after the recent 38th National Storytelling Festival where I was a featured teller of course I said, “Yes.”

Enjoy!

Bio:

Storyteller Rafe Martin is the author of over twenty books ranging from almost wordless picture books through collections and novels. His work has been featured in Time, Newsweek, and USA Today. He has also been a featured teller at such prestigious events and institutions as the National Storytelling Festival, the International Storytelling Center, the American Museum of Natural History, NASA, the American Library Association International Convention, the Joseph Campbell Festival of Myth and Story, the Sierra Storytelling Festival to name just a very few.

He is the recipient of numerous awards including multiple Parent’s Choice Gold Awards, Storytelling World awards, ALA Notable Book Awards, as well as the prestigious Empire State Award, given for the body of his work. He is also a fully ordained lay Zen practitioner, with many years of formal practice and study. His latest book is Endless Path: Awakening in the Buddhist Imagination – Jataka Tales, Zen Practice, and Daily life. He lives in Rochester, NY. See http://www.rafemartin.com for details.

Eric Wolf has been selected to receive an Oracle Award for Distinguished National Service to the storytelling community by the National Storytelling Network.

Eric Wolf (Brother Wolf) will be presented with the Oracle Award in recognition of his work as producer and host of the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf Show during the last evening of the National Storytelling Conference on July 31st, 2010 in Los Angeles, California. The National Storytelling Network (NSN) gives the Oracle Award for Distinguished National Service to individuals who contribute their time and energy in an exemplary manner on the national level.

The National Storytelling Network is dedicated to advancing the art of storytelling – as a performing art, a literacy tool, a cultural transformation process, and more. NSN is a member-driven organization and it offers direct services, publications and educational opportunities to several thousand individuals, local storytelling guilds and associations. These services are designed to improve storytelling everywhere — in entertainment venues, in classrooms, organizations, medical fields, families, and wherever storytelling can make a contribution to quality of life.

The Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf Show has had over 127, 000 downloads since it began podcasting in 2007. Created by Eric Wolf (Brother Wolf) in the spring of 2007, the show brings the best and brightest of the storytelling community to the world stage. 45% of listeners are from outside the United States from over 100 different countries. In the last six weeks the show has sustained over 7,000 individual downloads.

The Art of Storytelling Show is the world’s sole interview format show dedicated to exploring the art and science of storytelling in all its forms. With over a hundred interviews available for listening to online this podcast has become the premier resource for understanding and learning the art of storytelling worldwide.

To see a complete list of…
Press releases detailing the growth of the Art of Storytelling Show go to:
http://www.artofstorytellingshow.com/category/press-release
Guests organized by topic:
http://www.artofstorytellingshow.com/topics
NSN Oracle Award for Distinguished National Service:
http://www.storynet.org/programs/awards/distinguishedservice.html
Eric Wolf’s home page:
http://www.ericwolf.org

Contact: Karin Hensley NSN
Phone: 1-800-525-4514 ext 303

###

Brother Wolf said, on 4/27/2010 10:34:00 PM

Eric Wolf has been selected to receive an Oracle Award for Distinguished National Service to the storytelling community by the National Storytelling Network.

Eric Wolf (Brother Wolf) will be presented with the Oracle Award in recognition of his work as producer and host of the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf Show during the last evening of the National Storytelling Conference on July 31st, 2010 in Los Angeles, California. The National Storytelling Network (NSN) gives the Oracle Award for Distinguished National Service to individuals who contribute their time and energy in an exemplary manner on the national level.

The National Storytelling Network is dedicated to advancing the art of storytelling – as a performing art, a literacy tool, a cultural transformation process, and more. NSN is a member-driven organization and it offers direct services, publications and educational opportunities to several thousand individuals, local storytelling guilds and associations. These services are designed to improve storytelling everywhere — in entertainment venues, in classrooms, organizations, medical fields, families, and wherever storytelling can make a contribution to quality of life.

The Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf Show has had over 127, 000 downloads since it began podcasting in 2007. Created by Eric Wolf (Brother Wolf) in the spring of 2007, the show brings the best and brightest of the storytelling community to the world stage. 45% of listeners are from outside the United States from over 100 different countries. In the last six weeks the show has sustained over 7,000 individual downloads.

The Art of Storytelling Show is the world’s sole interview format show dedicated to exploring the art and science of storytelling in all its forms. With over a hundred interviews available for listening to online this podcast has become the premier resource for understanding and learning the art of storytelling worldwide.

To see a complete list of…
Press releases detailing the growth of the Art of Storytelling Show go to:
http://www.artofstorytellingshow.com/category/press-release
Guests organized by topic:
http://www.artofstorytellingshow.com/topics
NSN Oracle Award for Distinguished National Service:
http://www.storynet.org/programs/awards/distinguishedservice.html
Eric Wolf’s home page:
http://www.ericwolf.org

Contact: Karin Hensley NSN
Phone: 1-800-525-4514 ext 303

###

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Press Play to hear Baba Jamal Koram speak the responsibility of being a storytelling on the Art of Storytelling with Children.

Baba Jamal Koram is a storyteller in the African American Griotic TraditionsÔ he is a dedicated practitioner and teacher of the spoken word traditions and is a respected leader in the world of storytelling. Baba Jamal is a groundbreaking storyteller, educator, folk drummer and organizer. He is a past president of the National Association of Black Storytellers, Inc. and is a 2001 recipient of its prestigious Zora Neale Hurston award. Called a storyteller’s storyteller, and a Griot’s Griot he continues to travel across the nation sharing his stories and his presence with thousands of school children and their families. Baba Jamal holds the B.A., M.S. and Ed.S. degrees, and is married and the proud father of children, grand children, and godchildren.

This master storyteller uses his stories to inspire, encourage, and to uplift the positive growth of our children and in our communities.

He has said:

“My South Carolina great grandmother Mary would say to her grandchildren, “Bring me a cool glass of water, and I’ll tell you a story. Then she would proceed to tell them one of those traditional African American Gullah stories, about Bruh Rabbit or one of the many folkloric characters. . . I follow in her storytelling footsteps. . .Call me if you have a cool glass of spring water.”

For More information on Baba Jamal Koram check out his website: http://www.babajamalkoram.com/

Press Play to hear Jay O’Callahan speak about learning about Stories by telling to my Children on the Art of Storytelling with Children.

Jay O’Callahan writes…

I’m at work right now on a story commissioned by NASA, The National Aeronautics and Space Administration to celebrate its 50th anniversary. As I create the NASA story I’m aware I’m using all of the knowledge I gained telling stories to my own children. As I told stories to my children I began using repetition, rhythm, changing my voice, using a gesture here and there and inventing situations that involved struggle or risk, When my son Ted was about nine months old I’d make up little songs and rhythms to make him smile. Just making my voice go up high and then suddenly come down delighted him.
One night Ted was sitting in a soapy bath and I read him some of James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake. He laughed at the sounds.

When Ted got older I read books to him like The Gingerbread Man and discovered that he loved the repetition running through the story.

Run, run fast as you can
You can’t catch me I’m the Gingerbread Man.

I began reading one of Richard Scary’s book in which there was a character called Pierre the Paris Policeman. The line was, “Pierre the Paris Policeman was directing traffic one day.” I would sing that line with a French accent and lift up my hand to stop an imaginary car. The voice and accent brought the character alive. That was an important discovery. And if I read it in any other way it wasn’t Pierre and Ted would say, “Say it right.”

After my daughter Laura Elizabeth was born I told both my children “hand stories.” I’d take one of their hands, look at the palm of the hand and let a line, a bump or a curve in the hand suggest an image and I’d begin the story. It might go like this. “Once upon a time Ted saw a pink cloud resting by a tree. The cloud looked sad so Ted went over to cheer it up.” I was dreaming aloud and characters and images would spring to mind. I imaged that’s always happened to storytellers. I liked telling the hand stories because they were quiet and personal and my children liked being the hero and heroine. Some of those hand stories eventually turned into the Artana stories which take place in a mysterious land where two children, Edward and Elizabeth are the hero and heroine.

As I was telling to my children I learned the importance of a listener, particularly a listener with the sense of wonder and delight. My children listened me into being a storyteller.

Now as I work on this complicated story about NASA I use the knowledge I gained from my children. I ask myself this question: What is wondrous about NASA? And I’m on the alert for compelling characters and the risks they take and the struggles of their lives. I try to incorporate rhythm and repetition; I use a voice to become a character and find that a gesture helps bring the character alive.

As I shape the story and as it grows, I’m using the listeners. The listeners draw out mysteries in the story that I would have missed without them. Here I am back to the beginning.

Biography

Jay O’Callahan grew up in a section of Brookline, Massachusetts which was called “Pill Hill” because so many doctors lived there. The 32-room house and landscaped grounds were a magical atmosphere for a child’s imagination to blossom. When Jay was fourteen, he started making up stories to tell to his little brother and sister to entertain them.

After graduating from Holy Cross College, a tour in the Navy took Jay to the Pacific. Returning to Massachusetts, he taught and eventually became Dean at the Wyndham School in Boston, which his parents had founded. “In the summers I’d go off to Vermont or Ireland to write. I also did a lot of acting in amateur theatre, and that’s where I met a beautiful woman (Linda McManus) who later became my wife. When we had our first child, I left teaching and became the caretaker of the YWCA in Marshfield, a big old barn on a salt-water marsh. That gave me time to write and to tell stories to my children. When I decided to call myself a storyteller, it was like getting on a rocket.” Within three years, Jay was telling stories in hundreds of schools and in addition he was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra to create and perform Peer Gynt with the orchestra. His stories were broadcast on National Public Radio’s “The Spider’s Web,” which brought Jay national attention.

Jay was now publicly telling stories he had created for his children. His stories were filled with rhythms, songs and characters as diverse as Herman the Worm, Petrukian, a medieval blacksmith, and the Little Dragon. Orange Cheeks, inspired by a time Jay got in trouble as a little boy, was the first of his personal stories.

One of his most popular stories, Raspberries was born when Jay’s son Teddy was four. Teddy banged his shin outside their cottage and was weeping, “I broke my leg.” Jay told a story full of rhythms to cheer Teddy up.

Jay was also beginning to tell stories to adults. In 1980, while on vacation in Nova Scotia, he sat on and off for a month in the kitchen of an old man and a blind woman. Out of that kitchen came the story of The Herring Shed. “I realized then that part of my gift was to sit down with ordinary people where they were comfortable, listen, and later weave a story together so that others could enjoy it. The process still amazes me: one year I’m in a kitchen in Nova Scotia and a few years later, I’m performing The Herring Shed to a thousand people at Lincoln Center.” Time Magazine called The Herring Shed “genius.”After the Herring Shed came Jay’s Pill Hill stories for which is was awarded a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship. The Pill Hill stories are loosely based on his boyhood.

Storytelling has brought Jay around the earth. “The storyteller of old got on a horse. I get on a plane, parachute into a community and I’m part of its life for a while before moving on to the next one.” Jay has told stories to students at Stonehendge, to adults in the heat of Niger, Africa, to theatergoers in Dublin and London and at storytelling festivals in Scotland, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. His stories have also been heard on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. Jay’s stories also include commissioned works like The Spirit of the Great Auk, Pouring the Sun, Edna Robinson and Father Joe.

When he isn’t on the road, Jay runs a writing workshop at his home. His other interests include reading everything from Walt Whitman to Herman Melville to Flannery O’Connor to Emily Dickinson. And he enjoys listening to jazz, classical music and opera. “I love Maria Callas. Her singing touches a joy that’s very deep.”

Jay has just finished a political novel called Harry’s Our Man, and is creating a story commissioned by NASA for its 50th anniversary.

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Story Admirer 34%
Audience Member 31%
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Semi-professional Storyteller 20%
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Storytelling Coach 16%
Faith Based Storyteller 15%

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Your Feedback is important to the future of the show.
Participate now and directly influence the Art of Storytelling with Children.

Currently survey participants responses are coming from…
(One participant may check more then one choice.)
Professional Storyteller 43%
Educator 43%
Parent 41%
Storytelling Organizer 34%
Story Admirer 34%
Audience Member 31%
Writer of Children’s Stories 23%
Semi-professional Storyteller 20%
Librarian 18%
Amateur Storyteller 16%
Storytelling Coach 16%
Faith Based Storyteller 15%

This survey is still open - take your turn to influence the future of the Art of Storytelling with Children…
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Press Play to hear Loren Niemi who was interviewed by Eric Wolf on Honoring Elders and Apprentices on the Art of Storytelling with Children.

Loren Niemi writes…
I’ve been a storyteller for 30 plus years and yet in so many ways I feel like a beginner learning how to do now, what I learned how to do then. It is – LOL – a very “Zen and now” approach to storytelling: beginner’s mind.

At this point in time, I understand clearly and fondly what a gift I received when I came to storytelling. The gift of generous mentors – specifically, Ken Feit and Rueven Gold – who took a “Zen and now” approach offering friendship, access, who posed and (sometimes) answered questions, encouraged and gave permission for me to find and develop my own voice rather than adopt theirs. They welcomed me wherever they were telling and often made space for me to tell a story at those gatherings.

They were prolific in suggesting, cajoling, handing me books and lists of books to read that would ground me in the storytelling traditions. It is one of the laments I have about a significant portion of those coming into storytelling now, that they do not read (or feel they have to read) widely and deeply. My mentors understood the value of reading anthropology, mythology, theater, folklore collections as well as the importance of listening to stories and storytellers of all kinds from many traditions to enrich our understanding of the power of this art and the breadth of its reach across cultures.

They are dead now, but the stories I heard them tell still resonate for me. What they taught directly and indirectly has served me well over these many years. Many of the tellers (Marshall Dodge, Ray Hicks, Gamble Rogers, Jackie Torrence, Duncan Willimson) who were here at the beginning of the American Storytelling Revival are dead now but I was fortunate to have heard them and cherish the fact of it.

As the generation that is the root of our storytelling culture pass, I also understand that I have been at this long enough to be able to mentor others. I welcome the opportunity. It is consistent with the tradition of storytelling apprenticeship. It is both a responsibility and a pleasure to nourish “tongues of fire.” It is not a matter of ego or authority, but an understanding that if storytelling is to flourish I have a vested interest in passing on to those who would take it, the gift of craft and knowing.

Inevitably I will pass. But stories, perhaps even some of mine, will abide and I would hope that as I have honored my elders I will have shared the joy and terror which is storytelling with my apprentices.

Loren Niemi Bio

“I began as a child fibber
but soon discovered that I was less interested
in telling lies than I was in improving the truth.”

Storytelling is also the only sensible explanation Loren Niemi can offer for forty plus years as a community organizer and public policy consultant, trainer and Lobbyist working with non-profit groups to articulate their dreams, shape their messages, and resolve their conflicts.

Loren has also spent thirty as a professional storyteller, creating, collecting, performing and teaching stories to audiences of all ages in urban and rural settings. He has served as the Humanities Scholar in Residence for Northern Minnesota, the ringmaster and tour manager of In the Heart of the Beast Puppet & Mask Theatre’s Circle of Water Circus, and is one third of BAD JAZZ, a performance art trio with Michael Sommers and Kevin Kling, experimenting with theatrical and storytelling forms. His work has been called “post-modern,” “on the cutting edge of storytelling,” “with the dark beauty of language that is not ashamed of poetry.” It is, as storyteller, Kate Lutz said, “a sensibility that owes more to the New Yorker than to the Old Farmer’s Almanac.”

He is the co-author, with Elizabeth Ellis, of Inviting the Wolf In: Thinking About Difficult Stories, from August House Publishers and the author of The Book of Plots, on the uses of narratives in creating oral and written stories, published by Llumina Press.

Loren has a BA (Philosophy and Studio Arts) from St. Mary’s College (Winona, MN) and a MA in Liberal Studies (concentration: American Culture) from Hamline University (St. Paul, MN). He teaches Storytelling in the Communications Department of Metropolitan State University (St. Paul, MN) as well as providing organizational and corporate message framing, storytelling branding and community building workshops around the country.

Loren was one of the founders of the Northlands Storytelling Network, a five state storytelling education and advocacy organization, and spent four years as the Chair of the Board of Directors of the National Storytelling Network, the 3000 plus member advocate and promoter of America’s storytelling revival. He was the 2005 recipient of the Oracle award for national leadership and service.

Greetings! I look forward to sharing with you on Tuesday evening October 29, 2008, at 8pm. The focus topic on this pod cast of Storytelling With Children is “Breaking Barriers Through Storytelling”.

My introduction to literature and the planting of seeds that later bloomed into storytelling, came in the 1950’s. In the midst of a social, political and cultural climate that suggested that my family and community were devoid of intellect, history or culture, my father began reading to me the literary diamonds and jewels that came from within our culture. Somewhere around 6 years old, my father read out loud the words of James Weldon Johnson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Gwendolyn Brooks and Langston Hughes. My father relished and touted the genius of these writers. He handed me the Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, selected a poem for me to memorize and launched me, as a child, onto a spoken word path. Numerous church banquets, teas and special community events were staging grounds for “a reading by Miss Charlotte Blake”.

I’ll share some memories of that time and fast-forward to the place where those germinating seeds and my experience in an independent school crossed paths with storytelling and an immediate realization of the power of this art form. On I faculty of 70, I was one of three faculty members of color. One particular event at the school served as a reminder of how invisible we often were, of how a genuinely well-meaning (and I really mean that!) community could unknowingly participate in perpetuating stereotypes and marginalizing members of their community. My concern was the statement those actions made to the children in the community. When I encountered storytelling, I immediately saw it as a window, a bridge, a tool I could use; a way in which initially children, could access, affirm, value and appreciate a cultural perspective that was different from their own.

That two-story repertoire (plus a set of Kiddie Rock& Roll songs!) later expanded to incorporate stories for all ages. I’ve since told at home and abroad in schools, festivals, concert halls, detention centers, a refugee camp; in collaboration with jazz musicians, choreographers and symphony orchestras. One of my most storyteller-reaffirming moments happened in a refugee camp in northern Senegal. So come on in! It’s okay. This will not be psychologically heavy duty! I am not an academician. This will be a chance to peek inside my head, listen to my heart and perhaps hear a perspective, a view that might serve you well in your own work.

“See you” on the pod cast.